Testimony About the Agony of the Serbs in the Bosnian Muslim-Run Srebrenica Death Camps

Book by Ljiljana Bulatovic-Medic, available only in Serbian for the time being, “Screams and the Omen”, a harrowing testimony about the agony Bosnian Serbs were subjected to by their Muslim neighbors in Srebrenica death camps during the Bosnian civil war (1992-1995), was promoted yesterday in Belgrade, by the Association of Writers of Serbia.

With the third book in the edition “The Real Srebrenica”, Ljiljana Bulatovic-Medic has given a valuable contribution to establishing the full truth about the martyrdom and bloodcurdling sufferings of the Serbs in Srebrenica, which is to this day entirely ignored by the Western officials and the mainstream media.

Through the conversations with the victims and survivors of the Bosnian Muslim death camps, she presents the authentic testimony about the depraved, savage tortures of the Bosnian Serb women, mothers and their children still in the cradle, of how the paralyzed old men were being slaughtered and the monstrous physical and psychological abuses Bosnian Muslim “fighters” have subjected the imprisoned Serbs to, the final fate of many of whom remains unknown to this day.

“We were lying on the concrete. Across from us there were 14 women and four children. That is where they were beating us to a bloody pulp. They broke all my ribs on one side. That is where they were slashing my throat. They were cutting my ear. When I got away, I had to have surgeries in Milići. I still suffer from those beatings and tortures today… Beating, hitting. In this camp they were even more cruel than in the previous one. They were beating us more often, at any time of day and night. You can’t recognize all that were there, but these who have been beating us regularly, they were the mujahedeen. They were cursing everything that could have been and that was Serbian. Most often the “chetnik mother”. I did not know that one could swear like that and that much, and all the things one can come up with to swear at. They were relieving their most depraved instincts on us, abusing us in the most primitive ways — putting out cigarette buts on us, spitting, stomping…,” Ljiljana Bulatovic-Medic wrote the testimony Ratko Nikolic from the village Kravice near Srebrenica, who survived the horrors of the war camp of the Srebrenica butcher Naser Oric.

Ratko’s village was among the Bosnian Serb villages stormed by Oric’s mujahedeens (28th Muslim division under Oric’s command, stationed in Srebrenica during the war) on Christmas day, January 7, 1993. During that bloody raid, Bosnian Muslims massacred at their doorsteps all the inhabitants who did not manage to escape, after attacking Serbian villages in Srebrenica municipality from several directions at dawn. In Kravice, they executed 49 villagers and wounded 86.

Running away from the thirsty mujahedeen sabers, over 1,000 Serbian villagers from Srebrenica municipality, carrying children and their wounded, managed to reach river Drina on foot, through the heavy snow and mountainous inroads, from where they were carried to Serbia on boats.

Ljubica Gagic from the village Karna near Srebrenica wasn’t as lucky as Ratko Nikolic. She died in August 1992, in the most horrid agony in Naser Oric’s Srebrenica camp. Between the endless humiliation and abuse by Oric and one of his henchmen Zulfo Tursunovic on the one hand and death on the other, she chose the seven days of dying, by swallowing the sodium hydroxide. Desolate Ljubica was pregnant and could not bear the humiliations and tortures. She consciously chose death.

“God only knows all the tortures they subjected her to… They said that Oric and Zulfo have been raping her… She alone knew all the ways in which they abused her. Not a word came out of her. God only knows the secret agonies she took to the ground,” Ljubica’s cousin Danica Gagic testified.

Bosnian Serbs’ Cries for Justice Still Unheard and Unknown

In January 2008, Bosnian Serbs have submitted lawsuit against Oric’s mujahedins, accompanied by the extensive documentation about the Serbian victims in Srebrenica region, to the special War Crimes Prosecution office in Belgrade.

“All the documentation we sent to Carla Del Ponte, including more than 300 individual cases, has been returned by the Hague’s ICTY to a Bosnian Muslim court which, to this day, has not opened a single case. We have submitted documentation about suffering of Serbs in torture camps on the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia, but Carla Del Ponte returned everything to Sarajevo, where she established a court in the very building where one of the most infamous death camps Sarajevo Serbs were being tortured in was housed during Bosnian civil war,” said Branislav Dukic, head of the Society of Internment Camp Survivors in Republika Srpska.

“We must shed light on the truth about suffering of the Serbian people on the territory of former Yugoslavia. And we shall never forget the atrocities committed over our kin by the Bosnian Muslim death-hordes, led by the monstrous Naser Oric,” Dukic told Belgrade daily Glas Javnosti.

Documentation About 3,562 Srebrenica-Region Serbs Tortured and Killed by Bosnian Muslims

“We have submitted to the special War Crimes Prosecutions’ office in Belgrade documentation about 3,562 thus far identified Serbs killed in Srebrenica region, between 1992-1995. The collected evidence pertains to 52 Bosnian Muslims who were either giving the orders or have committed the crimes themselves, and who are responsible for the ethnic cleansing, war crimes and genocide in Srebrenica. I hope this material will throw a new light on Srebrenica. We are convinced that the special prosecution will find the way to move things forward from the dead end,” explains Dukic, pointing out that, when it comes to Bosnian Muslim Srebrenica victims, the list includes those who are declared dead, but are alive and well, presently living in United States.

“We demand that those who are responsible for the crimes face justice. No amounts of money can compensate such a loss, but we are seeking emotional and moral satisfaction that everyone who committed those crimes gets properly punished, instead of the atrocities committed over the Serbs being treated as killing a stray animal or a Serb is the same thing,” Dukic said.

Srebrenica Muslims Tortured and Killed 109 Serbs in Slavka’s Village in a Single Day

Slavka Matic from the village Bjelovac was also among the members of the Republika Srpska delegation which came to Belgrade to submit the lawsuit. Slavka has lost in one day, on December 14, 1994, two daughters, Snezana and Gordana, and husband Radivoje.

“I was away that day. When I came back I found them massacred at our doorsteps. What can I do now? Everything I worked for for 25 years those monsters have destroyed in one day. I want all the perpetrators punished. They were killing everything they could get their hands on, no matter whether female or male, old or young. They were killing children too. In one day, they killed 109 people in my village. Naser Oric’s troops are behind that. I want the truth to be known about the suffering of our loved ones. So that it is known how many of them have been murdered and in what manner,” explains her tragedy Slavka Matic.

According to the testimony of the survivors of the slaughter in Slavka’s village, Radivoje Matic was awaken by the shooting. As soon as he crossed his doorstep he fell down wounded. His daughter Snezana (29), ran to help him when she heard her father’s cries. Slavka Matic found husband Radivoje mutilated and, next to his body, remains of massacred Snezana. She found the body of the other daughter, Gordana (27), in the bathroom. Before they killed her, Oric’s mujahedins tortured her in a most monstrous way.

Chicken-Coop Slaughter

President of the Society of Bratunac and Srebrenica Serbs, Milka Kovacic, who represents Bosnian Serb mothers who have lost their loved ones, only wants the cry of the Serbian martyred women to be heard.

“No one has yet been called to account for the crimes committed over our kin from 1992 to 1995 in Srebrenica region. We have entire families that have been wiped out, and no one to report that they are all gone. Oric’s Muslims were killing the paralyzed, mothers and their children in the most gruesome manner. Oric’s men cut my husband’s throat in the chicken coop, where they slaughtered members of 80 families. Oric received only two years of [already served] imprisonment. It is painful to see the smile on the face of that monster,” Milka Kovacic said.